BIRDS OF THE PEAK 129 



sunshine, the size so exaggerated by the light and 

 motion as to produce the illusion of a big bird, the 

 only one left alive by the Philistines and destroyers. 

 But it is a beautiful illusion which lasts only a few 

 moments. In all this Peak district you will not find 

 a larger bird than a curlew or mallard or crow, that 

 very big bird which my clergyman told me about. 

 Not a buzzard, not a harrier, not a raven, or any 

 other species which when soaring would seem an 

 appropriate object and part of the scenery in these 

 high wild places. 



What a contrast between all these delicate voices 

 of the moorland, from the faint tinkle of the rising 

 and falling pipit to the curlew's trill, and others I 

 have omitted, the golden plover and water-ouzel, 

 the aerial bleat of the snipe, the wail of the pewit 

 and thin sharp pipe of the sandpiper or "water- 

 squealer," as the natives call it — between all these 

 and the red grouse. He has no music in him, but 

 great power. On these high moors his habit is to sit 

 or stand on a stone wall to sun himself and keep an 

 eye on his wives and rivals and the world generally. 

 He stands, head erect, motionless, statuesque, the 

 harsh-looking heap of dark gritstone forming an 

 appropriate pedestal. For he is like a figure cut in 

 some hard dark red stone himself — red gritstone, or 

 ironstone, or red granite, or, better still, deep-red 

 serpentine, veined and mottled with black, an ex- 

 ceedingly hard stone which takes a fine polish. And 

 in voice and character the bird is what he looks, hard 

 and brave, both as wooer and fighter. Even near the 



